Opera Workshop NORFOLK Presents Two Scenes Free at New York University on the Evening of November 13, Drawing on the History of Virginia Chinese Community, With Four Singers and About 30 Minutes of Music Followed by an Artist Talkback
A free opera workshop presentation of NORFOLK took place at New York University on Friday, November 13, offering something different from a finished production, with two scenes from the work followed by a conversation with the artists.
Composer Randall Eng and librettist Monique Truong are developing the work around a father and daughter, a Virginia childhood and memories carried into a later life in New York, Grassworks Productions lists the New York presentation from 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern at the Black Box Theatre of the NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, and a separate workshop took place at Attucks Theatre in Norfolk, Virginia, on Wednesday, November 11, also from 7 to 8 p.m., with both official listings describing free admission.
The public presentation follows a week in which four singers workshop material that is still being written, Kelly Kuo conducts and Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li directs, and the announced format is approximately 30 minutes of music, with an artist talkback and audience questions afterwards, the published agenda starts the music at 7 p.m. and the discussion at 7:30 p.m., and this is a work-in-progress showing rather than a full-opera premiere.
The organizer names Karen Vuong as Rose and Davy Mother, Hai-Ting Chinn as Young Mother, Xiaojie Ji as Young, and Junhan Choi as Uncle Rich and Davy, Jason Wirth is the pianist, and Abagael Cheng produces the workshop.
In the organizer synopsis, Rose knows her father, Dr. Young Sing, as a respected doctor and family man with a life on Staten Island, his memories lead her back to his youth in Norfolk, where a teenage Young works at The Oriental Chop Suey Café and watches Western films, the story moves among Norfolk in 1936, 1947 and 1950 and Staten Island in 1988, the fictional family story draws on the history of the Chinese community in Virginia and should not be read as a documentary biography of a named local family, and the New York booking page lists 1 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003.
Source: Grassworks Productions
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：图中是纽约华盛顿广场拱门，纽约大学主校区位于该广场周边，资料图。Marco Almbauer，CC0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: file photo related to this report. Marco Almbauer，CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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